There was one person at Oak Ridge High who never called me Grease Monkey.

Lucy Parker sat next to me in English class for three years. She was quiet, with glasses and a big laugh she didn't let out very often. Her family didn't have much money either.

On days when I didn't have lunch, she'd tear her sandwich in half without saying anything and put it on my desk.

Once, after Chad's locker stunt, she found me in the parking lot behind the gym, trying to scrub oil off my books.

She sat down on the curb next to me.

“My grandpa was a mechanic,” she said. “He used to say engines are the most honest things in the world. They always tell you what's wrong, if you listen.”

She helped me wipe my books with her napkins.

“Don't let them make you ashamed of your hands, Nick,” she said. “Your hands can fix things. Theirs can't.”

I never forgot that.

After graduation, Lucy went to college to become a teacher. I went to work full time at Uncle Ray's garage.

We lost touch, the way people do.

But I thought about what she'd said a lot.